Yoruba in the Nigerian situation

The general decline of Nigeria, and Nigeria’s growing poverty, has dragged the Yoruba nation steadily down since independence. Typically too, federal administrations hate the Yoruba spirit of enterprise and modernization, as well as the Yoruba frontline position in development, and devise various ways to drag the Yoruba people back.

In spite of all these, the Yoruba are deservedly proud of their consistent contributions to the progress, stability and survival of Nigeria. They have always served as the pace-setters in educational and most other aspects of modernization in Nigeria. They have faithfully preserved their culture of religious tolerance and accommodation in their homeland, their cultural openness to the acceptance and inclusion of immigrants from other parts of Nigeria, and their political culture that promotes the growth of modern democratic society. They are always the foremost in the promotion of a sane federal structure for Nigeria, and in the defence of the integrity and well-being of Nigeria’s many nationalities. The Yoruba homeland has therefore regularly been the destination for most Nigerians needing to relocate from the harsh conditions and conflicts of their homelands.

The Yoruba also have a proud record of stepping forth at critical moments to defend Nigeria’s existence and stability. In 1966-7, as Nigeria slid towards chaos and civil war, the Yoruba were the only major Nigerian people standing up for peaceful resolution of differences in Nigeria. Unfortunately, the very courageous interventions by Yoruba leaders (Leader of the Yorubas, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, and the Western State’s then Military Governor, Gen. Adeyinka Adebayo) did not succeed in achieving an amicable and peaceful resolution of the passionate differences – and civil war followed. In the civil war, the Yoruba nation’s various inputs (on the battle field and in the government’s management of Nigeria’s war effort) proved the most crucial contributions to the preservation of Nigeria as one country.

In 2009-10, when President Yar’Adua from the Arewa North died in office, the Arewa North political elite demanded that he must be succeeded by another Arewa North politician – a demand that sought to set aside his Vice-President, Jonathan from the Delta, in negation of the constitutional provision that a president who dies in office shall be succeeded by his vice-president. It was a strong and resolute defence of the constitutional provision by masses of Yoruba elite and people at home and abroad, that stopped the crisis which threatened Nigeria with conflict and disaster.

In 2014, when the President of Nigeria convoked a National Conference, the overwhelming majority of the Yoruba elite and people arose to give it full support. Many Yoruba civic organizations submitted memoranda. A series of Yoruba leadership meetings was held, and a restated Yoruba Agenda was put forth, spelling out the well-considered proposals of the Yoruba nation for Nigeria’s stability and progress. Furthermore, in the interest of Nigeria, the leaders of the Yoruba South-west reached out to the leaders of the other zones. Their contacts with the South-east and South-south resulted in a meeting of the leaders of the three zones at Asaba just days before the commencement of the National Conference. At the Asaba meeting, the leaders of the three zones agreed to work together. On the whole, the Yoruba delegation discharged its duties creditably at the conference, did a good job of putting the Yoruba position clearly forward, and deserves much of the credit for the success achieved by the conference.

Even though not much hope for change ever manifests in the Nigerian situation, the Yoruba generally don’t give up on Nigeria. Thus, in the course of 2013-14, the collapse of Nigeria appeared imminent. The Federal Government became more chaotic than ever before. The ruling political party was breaking up. Corruption was at a peak in all aspects of government. The Armed Forces, horribly weakened by corruption, were limping pitifully against Boko Haram in the North-east, and the fear was high that Boko Haram would expand its terrorism all over Nigeria. Faith in the country was at its lowest. Even in the Arewa North, whose political elite had always held a predominance in Nigeria’s governance since they had been installed over Nigeria by the British at independence, people were talking of dissolution of Nigeria. Various prominent Arewa North citizens threatened a resort to war. Reports of illegal arms imports into Nigeria sky-rocketed. An organization of Arewa youths held demonstrations demanding that Southerners resident in the North should return to their homelands within two weeks, that Northerners resident in the South should return to the North, and that the “failed experiment” of Nigeria should be terminated without delay.

In these dark hours, a Yoruba political leadership group stepped forth to save Nigeria. Their resourcefully and competently managed effort mobilized leading citizens from all over Nigeria and produced a new Nigeria-wide political party which boldly promised change. In order to stem the tide of the prevailing inter-regional hostility, these Yoruba leaders helped to nominate their party’s candidate for Nigeria’s president from a nationality other than their own Yoruba nationality – a candidate from Arewa North, Muhammadu Buhari. Their party won the presidential election as well as majorities in both houses of the Nigerian federal legislature. Change seemed about to begin.

President Buhari is fighting corruption and the old terrorist organization, Boko Haram, with some success. But he has demonstrated that he is no President of change. He has seriously depressed the influence of the party that got him elected; and he runs what looks more and more like an ethnic-sectionalist administration. He never makes any reference to the need to restructure the federation, to allow some autonomy to the regions, to restore socio-economic development initiative to the regions and states in order to revive the country’s economy and reduce poverty.

Moreover, under him, the most murderous terror gang hitherto known in Nigeria has grown and quickly extended its rampages to most parts of Nigeria. This gang consists mostly of Fulani herdsmen who are armed with sophisticated rifles – and are destroying farms, killing farmers and farmers’ families, raping women, and destroying villages in most parts of Southern Nigeria and the Middle Belt. According to President Buhari himself (in an interview with CNN in London in late May) gangs of Libyan militiamen from late President Ghadafi’s militia who fled from Libya with their arms after the fall of Ghadafi, are embedded among these Fulani herdsmen, and have been supplying much of their capacity for killings and destruction.

What the objective can be for this whole storm of rural killings and destruction is a great mystery to most Nigerians. It looks very much like the Janjaweed kind of terror in the Darfur Province of former Sudan Republic. In the Middle Belt, it looks very much like ethnic cleansing – an attempt to wipe out the small nationalities of this region and seize their homelands. In the South, where the nationalities (like the Yoruba and Igbo) are larger and stronger, the immediate objective seems to be to disrupt the agricultural economy of the various peoples.

Even as this new storm of terror has grown, President Buhari has chosen to take steps to terminate the debate over the restructuring of the Nigerian Federation. On May 28, he made the alarming statement that he had not “bothered to read”, and did not intend to read or to seek any brief on, the Report of the 2014 National Conference. He stated that he had simply dumped it into the archives. A week later, his spokesmen informed Nigeria that restructuring the federation was not part of their government’s agenda – even though their party had earlier promised Nigeria that restructuring the federation was a cardinal point in their change agenda.

It is historically significant that, while President Buhari thus shot down all consideration of structural change in Nigeria, some nations in Nigeria stepped up their demands for separation from Nigeria. In the South-east, the Igbo pro-Biafra organizations put huge crowds of demonstrators on the streets, and the clash of some of these with the police resulted in death and injury to many people. In the South-south, Niger Delta militants repeatedly announced demands for a new sovereign Delta country. They then greatly intensified their blowing up of oil mining and pipeline installations, thus inflicting very heavy damage on the Nigerian economy. In the Yoruba South-west, some highly placed Yoruba citizens, gathered at a civic event, reiterated the demand for the restructuring of the Nigerian Federation, adding that continued resistance to restructuring would result in “no Nigeria”. A few days later, in a city in the Igbo South-east, many prominent citizens from most parts of Nigeria (including former Nigerian vice-presidents, ministers, governors, legislators, etc), gathered at a civic event, demanded that the Nigerian federation should be restructured without delay, insisting that the existing conditions of the country were no longer tenable or sustainable.

In short, stubborn and rigid resistance to demands for restructuring the Nigerian federation and for increased local autonomy, now makes Nigeria steadily more unstable, more violent, more chaotic, and more unworkable day by day. It is difficult to see what more the Yoruba, or any group, can do now to stop the slide. The probability of Nigeria’s dissolution has become very real.

Our animal passions and emotions have been brutally aroused and inflamed. A good number of our people, including youths and those in high places in our society, have developed callous cynicism and contempt for honesty and morality. Crimes are common and are committed with frightening abandon. Corruption is colossal and is practiced on a scale never before attempted, and with a skill and an impunity never before imagined possible